Numbers
by Charis M
Summary: “She is comfortable where she is, for all that she grumbles to Masumoto regularly she and her captain suit each other.  There is no sense to disrupting that equilibrium.”  Nothing is eternal.  [Ise Nanao and her captain, and the length of a moment.]


**Numbers**  
by Charis

_Disclaimer: _Bleach _belongs to Kubo Tite.  
Notes: I don't usually write this sort of romantic fluff. Dear brain, WTF? That said, these two are becoming (okay, strike the "becoming") my guilty pleasure 'ship in _Bleach_. I also fail, as usual, at titles._

She is not foolish enough to think herself the first.

Whatever criticisms she might make of her captain when it comes to the occupants of his bed, she feels it safe to say that he has loved each and every one of them. Kyoraku is a man with an overly large heart, and he opens it without hesitation; while others may call him indiscriminate (or worse) in his choice of partners, she knows him well enough to say that he always cares. That they are not undying passions does not change the fact.

If she were to deny that knowledge's effect on her interactions with him, she would be lying. She is an orderly person; late at night, when sleep eludes her, she has made lists enumerating reasons why getting involved with him would be foolish at best. The simple reason is that he is her captain, after all, and that sort of interaction would be inappropriate, not to mention making workplace interactions unnecessarily complicated. She also has the pattern of interactions, however, and thinks that surely once she has given in, he will stop with the fluttering eyelashes and pursed lips and pet names, but at the same time, surely that aftermath would only make things even more troublesome. She is comfortable where she is, for all that she grumbles to Masumoto regularly; she and her captain suit each other. There is no sense to disrupting that equilibrium.

Time wears at her resistance, patient as water at a stone, and one day impulse finally wins over sense, and when he reaches for the umpteenth time to kiss her, she does not resist. He makes a brief, surprised sound when his lips touch hers rather than the usual interposed book, a sound that quickly becomes a pleased hum when her fingers weave through his hair and she returns the kiss.

What follows is a foregone conclusion, when they have been building to this for decades.

Later, when the sky has darkened and the stars wink overhead and his breathing has settled, she rises from the tangle of bedding and finds her discarded shihakushou. She pulls the layers on, white and then black and, intent on tying her obi, misses the shift behind her. Not until she turns to find his eyes on her does she realise he's actually awake; his gaze stills her motions.

"Leaving already?"

She closes her eyes, turns her head away. "I thought it was better."

"Nanao," he says, low and serious and sending a shiver across her skin, and she freezes. And then, hardly a breath, a word she never expected from him: "Please."

Her breath hitches in, halfway between laugh and sob. "What do you want, taichou?" She's not sure if she's trying to remind him or herself of that gulf.

He must have moved, though she missed the sound of him rising. He does not touch her, but when he comes to stand before her, he's close enough she can feel the heat of his body even through the layers of shihakushou. "_You_."

At the single syllable, her eyes fly open. He's looking down at her, those lazy smiling eyes open and intense, and the naked yearning there is almost too much. She reminds herself of the parade of women, though, and lays a restraining hand against his chest.

"For how long?"

The words must communicate what she's unable to. His mouth curves just a little, and there is no mockery in the smile, just a surprisingly gentle wonder. One hand lifts, fingers brushing down the side of her face, over her lips. The intensity of his gaze has not diminished.

"As long as you will have me," he says, and she, accustomed to reading every nuance of his words and deeds, knows he speaks nothing but the truth.

- x -

She is not foolish enough to think herself the first.

She is not foolish enough to miss realising that she will be the last.

It is enough.

_- finis -_


End file.
